City Council spokesperson Lisa Gardner ascends to Spokane NAACP president

Dec. 22—Lisa Gardner recalls a childhood marked by attending NAACP meetings in Spokane with her grandmother Sarah Gardner, an activist and well-known business-owner in Spokane's Black community until her death in 1987. Sitting next to the 4-foot-11-inch beautician surrounded by community members, 10-year-old Lisa didn't realize the political significance of such events.

"It felt like family, it felt like community, it felt like the pure essence of a Black community," Gardner said. "It just, it felt like home. I would see people that I knew from church that I knew from school and they were at an NAACP meeting, so I didn't look at it as 'Oh, I'm here as a young activist, I'm here to make change.'"

She certainly didn't see herself becoming president of the Spokane NAACP as she did at Wednesday night's meeting, ascending to the role after Kurtis Robinson's resignation. Gardner was vice president and next in line to assume the title.

"I just was there in the shadows of my grandmother, and I think that subconsciously as a 10-year-old, you take all of that in and you absorb it and so now it's manifesting and to me serving in Spokane now as a president."

Her grandmother, Sarah Q. Gardner, who owned a salon in East Central Spokane and taught cosmetology at Spokane Community College, served on the board and as a youth director for the NAACP. She was killed in her salon shortly after running for Spokane City Council in 1987 in a crime that has never been solved.

Beyond childhood recollection, Gardner has been involved in the Spokane chapter since 2021. She's currently the director of communications and community engagement for the Spokane City Council. Ahead of her presidency, Gardner is prioritizing increasing membership and mobilization and rekindling some of the cohesion in the Black community from her childhood nostalgia.

After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Gardner said membership swelled with people wanting to get involved in activism but unsure where to start. Since then, membership has decreased, though Gardner hopes she can reap the "low-hanging fruit" of college students to expand awareness of the NAACP as well as civic engagement through voting. She said in her visits to Black Student Unions at colleges, she's been surprised how many students don't know about the NAACP.

"Gonzaga and Eastern Washington last year had some racial events that happened on their campuses and we want those students to feel like they have someone that is their ally in the community," Gardner said. "Who better to have as your ally than the NAACP?"

She's eager to continue to support programs like a current initiative called the School-to-Healthcare Pipeline, in which students from Rogers High School get hands-on experience at Providence's simulation lab, visits to health science labs at Washington State University and connect with healthcare students and professionals.

"Being able to implement programs in the community, not just showing up in the face of racism — which we'll continue to always do — but it's also being that organization that's implementing tools to uplift our people, black and brown people, but also create programs that will benefit them, not just today, but for years and years to come," Gardner said.

Gardner takes over from Robinson, who at Wednesday's meeting said he was resigning to make room for new leadership. Robinson has served three terms, over four years in total, as president in the seven years he's been an NAACP member.

"I will support and encourage new leadership," Robinson said at Wednesday's meeting. "I say to you that the state of our branch is very, very good. All one really has to do is look clearly to see the important and meaningful changes that this organization has gone through over the last seven years."

Under Robinson's leadership, the chapter pushed for the city to establish the office of civil rights in city government . Working in tandem with the office to address inequity and discrimination is something Gardner is looking forward to in her role as president, like sharing intel of experiences the NAACP learns about.

"How can we all work together to combat what's going on in the community?" Gardner said. "Because there's going to be strength in numbers when you're fighting racism or any type of social injustices."

Elena Perry's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.